Air Nostalgia DC3 - the risk of unintended consequences?

[Centaurus]

imtVH-TMQ, an Air Nostagia DC3 sits forlornly at Essendon Fields aerodrome, facing the Matthews Avenue tram tracks. You can see it from the Tullamarine Freeway. It looks in good nick and its all natural metal finish looks lovely in the evening sunset. But there was something unusual I could not immediately pick about it. Then it struck me. It was the wooden cleats on each aileron designed to prevent the ailerons from being damaged in high surface winds.

It is a good few years since I flew Dakotas in the RAAF and old VH-CAN of the former DCA Flying Unit at Essendon. If I recall correctly, you had to fit the left and right aileron cleats carefully to avoid the wing flaps being damaged if they drooped with no hydraulic pressure to keep them in the fully retracted position. Put the starboard wing cleat on to the port wing aileron in error and you risk damaging the flaps. .

But I noticed that in the Air Nostalgia DC3, the aileron cleats were a different design from what I remember (allowing for fading memories). These Air Nostalgia cleats were designed to offset the control column wheel in the cockpit so that a pilot taxying the aircraft would instantly tell something was wrong because the control wheel could not be centred with the cleats in place.

However, ever since some DC3's crashed after takeoff because the control locks had been inadvertently left in place instead of being removed during the walk-around inspection, the rudder cleat was redesigned to deliberately offset the rudder by a few degrees when in place. I don't know if this was a CAA/CASA/DCA mandatory requirement or not. The theory being the pilot in the cockpit would notice during the before takeoff check, that the rudder pedals not respond to full and free movement. And even if he forgot that important pretakeoff check, he would have a real problem trying to taxy the aircraft with the rudder pedal offset which makes braking a bit tricky.

The elevator cleat in the Air Nostalgia DC3 when set in place forces the elevators into a slight stick back position. Again, whether or not that was a CAA/DCA requirement I do not know. I cannot recall the RAAF elevator cleat positions either.

Braving the occasional red back spider I found a wartime RAAF Dakota operating manual among other books in my shed. The front cover said: RAAF Publication No. 336 November 1943. Pilots' Notes - Operating Instructions for C47 Transport version of Douglas D.C.3.
Page 6 said there were three relief tubes installed in the aircraft. One beneath the pilot's seat, one beneath the co-pilot's seat and one on the aft bulkhead of the lavatory compartment. After all these years I never knew about the pissaphones under the pilots seats.

Paragraph g of page 6 says "SURFACE CONTROL LOCKS - Five surface control locks are stowed on the floor in the lavatory compartment." In other words they came with the aircraft and presumably to the manufacturer's specifications. Turning to page 16 para. (d) where the heading states: "Before entering the cockpit" it says: "Make certain that all surface control locks are removed." And finally at page 30 BEFORE LEAVING THE AIRCRAFT it says at para (3) 'Wing and empennage surface control locks installed." "Empennage" now that's a word you don't hear very often nowadays.

But the real purpose of this story is ask why the Air Nostalgia DC3 has changed the original design of the wing aileron cleats from something designed to lock the ailerons into a wings level neutral position on the ground, to an offset position that would roll the aircraft into an instant left turn after lift-off and eventually into the ground as the control wheel cannot be forced back into neutral?

Already the rudder cleat when inserted makes taxying so difficult that most pilots would twig something was seriously out of place and return to the tarmac. But what if someone removed the rudder and elevator cleats but was distracted and forgot to remove the aileron cleats?

Sure, the pilot would notice the offset control wheel when entering the aircraft, or when taxying or when conducting the controls full and free movement as part of the pre-takeoff check. But stranger things have happened in the flying game and checks have been missed for all sorts of reasons.

Are the design of DC3 surface control locks part of an airworthiness requirement? Certainly in all my previous experience in both RAAF and civilian DC3's I do not recall seeing off set aileron surface control cleats. I wondered who decided it was a good idea to have these type of cleats in place for the Air Nostalgia DC3?

Personally, I think it could be a trap for the unwary since getting airborne and suddenly finding the aircraft in a uncommanded left hand turn at 50 feet can only lead to one result.
The solution is to throw away the non-standard offset aileron cleats and replace them with standard shaped cleats that all Dakota and DC3 aircraft came equipped with since time immemorial.